Monday, April 24, 2017

Reflection 1 on Evangelization in the Modern World (Evangelii Nuntiandi)

I read Evangelii Nuntiandi
for the first time back in 2002. I was working at a small parish in a small
town as a religious education coordinator for grades 5 through Confirmation. At
our parish in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota we hauled
our 16 year old Confirmandi, their parents and sponsors to the Cathedral in a
couple charter buses. Of course most of these teenagers treat Confirmation as
graduation and we don’t see much of them at church after that.

I and my wife had gone through RCIA
and entered the Church in 1992 after spending 13 married years together
attending non-Catholic evangelical churches. We had learned how to evangelize
by attending “Share Your Faith” seminars and “Evangelism Explosion” training.
When we became Catholic we knew Catholics were supposed to evangelize but we
were disappointed to discover how few were interested in evangelization. I was
encouraged when I read Evangelii Nuntiandi and found Pope Paul VI and
all the Popes since were more eager than I was to get Catholics evangelizing.

Way back in the 1970s Pope Paul VI,
in his Address for the closing of the Third General Assembly of the Synod of
Bishops, used the phrase “NEW period of EVANGELIZATION.” The New Evangelization
has been around for a while.

While I find this focus on evangelization
encouraging, I also am a bit frustrated. As I have written elsewhere (Eleven Reasons
Catholics Do Not Evangelize) I am frustrated because there seems to be no sense
of urgency among most of the laity. In
the work-a-day world during a performance appraisal we hear, "You do not
exhibit a sense of urgency." This comment is usually referring to some
earth shattering, life or death thing like making sure there's enough toilet
paper in the restrooms. We think, "Why should I be urgent about something
that isn't life or death or involving somebody's eternal destiny?" So, to
please the supervisor, we race around all day acting like emptying the pencil
sharpener will forestall World War III. Leading lost people to Jesus does involve
somebody's eternal destiny but when it comes to evangelization the average people
in the Church move at glacial speed (using Sherry Weddell’s phrase).

When I was involved with Campus Crusade
for Christ in college (now called CRU) the call to action was to reach the
world for Christ in our generation. There was a great sense of urgency.

At least all the Popes since I
graduated from high school back in 1975 and probably Popes prior have stressed
evangelization but most average Catholics seem to be afraid of the word and
even sometimes believe “We Catholics don’t do that.”

Throughout these paragraphs I find
the word “proclaim”. I’ve heard Catholics often like to repeat a quote they
think came from St. Francis (he never really said it) “Preach the Gospel at all
times, use words if necessary.” They think this gets them off the hook and they
don’t really ever need to say anything about Jesus to anyone who might need to
learn about Him. These Catholics figure if they live a good life people will be
drawn to Jesus, but how will those people know anything about Jesus if these
Catholics don’t explain Him to them? Jesus needs to be proclaimed. There is
power in the message, but the message needs to be proclaimed.

Pope Paul VI wrote Jesus is the
greatest evangelizer. We are to imitate Jesus. Jesus proclaims a Kingdom. So
must we. As Evangelii Nuntiandi says we have the power of Pentecost but
we still may need to answer the first of the three burning questions, “In our
day, what has happened to that hidden energy of the Good News, which is able to
have a powerful effect on man’s conscience?”